HacBook Elite is an unofficial Mac laptop for $329 – Geek

Apple does not look kindly on any company attempting to copy their hardware, just look at how long Samsung has been in court facing off against Apple’s lawyers. But when a company decides to develop a laptop that runs OS X without first getting Apple’s approval, which we all know they’d never give… well, don’t expect that company to be around for very long.

The creators of the HacBook Elite must know what’s going to happen, but they either know something we don’t or they simply don’t care. Whatever the case, you can now pre-order a HacBook Elite, which promises to run OS X out the box, and for as little as $329. That’s $570 cheaper than a MacBook Air, and nearly a $1,000 cheaper than the entry level MacBook or MacBook Pro.

Each HacBook Elite is actually a like-new refurbished HP EliteBook that is guaranteed to run any Mac program. The people behind it have been building custom Hacintoshes (PCs that run OS X) for years and have decided to take their business commercial. In so doing, they’ll receive Apple’s full attention and likely face legal action before this week is over.

Inside the HacBook you’ll find an Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage either in HDD or SSD form, and 802.11a/b/g/n wireless. The display is 14-inches with a resolution of 1600 x 900. It’s perfect for a range of Mac-specific uses including being used as a development laptop for compiling and shipping iOS and OS X applications.

There’s no detail on how much upgrading the HacBook Elite costs beyond the base $329 spec. All you can do right now is submit your email address on the HacBook website and ordering details will be sent to your immediately along with the options you have for upgrading.

It seems likely Apple will halt orders as quickly as it can, but if you get in early you may be lucky enough to have one shipped.